1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer network operations. In particular, the present invention relates to methods, systems, and computer program products for performing document-inclusion operations over a network, the document-inclusion operations typically requiring the inclusion of a document to be transmitted along with an instruction to perform the operation on the document.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Computer networks allow more individuals more ready access to more information than ever before. The Internet is a conglomerate of interconnected computer networks that spreads far and wide throughout the world. An individual need only have an Internet-enabled computer and a connection to the Internet to be able to communicate and access information from across the globe.
Computers (and their users) may communicate over a network by exchanging electronic messages in accordance with a protocol or a set of rules. Conventional networking protocols typically allow such electronic messages to include a document attachment. For example, electronic mail or “e-mail” may include a variety of different document attachments including, for example, word processing documents, spreadsheet files, image files, sound files, and executable files among many other document types. As another example, an electronic message may also be a meeting request having a corresponding calendar attachment that represents a proposed calendar entry.
Operations that typically require the transmission of an electronic message with a corresponding document attachment will be referred to herein as a “document-inclusion” operation. Such document-inclusion operations may include, for example, the sending or forwarding of an e-mail with an attachment, the sending or responding to a meeting request with a calendar attachment, printing a document over a network, faxing a document over a network, or the like.
The documents attached to an electronic message can often be quite large. For example, an e-mail could theoretically have a word processing document with image and sound files embedded within the word processing document. However, there are network restrictions that make the transfer of such document attachments burdensome.
For example, some networks have relatively limited throughput including, for example, some wireless carrier networks. Also, many of these same wireless carriers may impose a time-based charge on data transfers. Since the transfer of document attachments over such low bandwidth and/or high cost networks can take some time, the transfer of the document attachment can be quite costly. Other low bandwidth and/or high cost networks may charge based on the amount of data transferred. Since document attachments can be quite large, transferring a document attachment over such low bandwidth and/or high cost networks may be costly as well.
Therefore, what is desired are methods, systems, and computer program products for performing document-inclusion operations over a network in a manner that improves the usage of the network.